Posts Tagged ‘peer-to-peer’

Rob Manuel gave what seems to have been an impassioned defence of “the bottom half of the internet”, saying that “troll” had become the equivalent of “chav” — a word used to demonise and silence people who don’t have power. Rob’s argument appears to echo the joke of defining a “troll” as “the least famous of two people arguing on Twitter.” Rob seems to have equated the disdain felt for the “proles” by the upper echelons of society with the disdain felt for the “commentards” by the chattering columnist classes of the media.

While anonymity has been equated with lack of authenticity and cowardice, Poole said, “I think that’s totally wrong. Anonymity is authenticity.” Only in the safety of anonymity, he argued, can people play in the most honest way.

In online forums, we write for positive and negative response, for the conversation, for the pursuit of deeper understanding, for the feedback we get and the resulting whole. I love this line on Gransnet which sums it up neatly:

it isn’t my thread. Once I’ve pressed the “post message” button, it belongs to everyone on gransnet

This sentiment is endlessly difficult to sell or even explain to those whose livelihoods have depended on the commodification of information, ideas and opinion. As the recent Leveson report has shown, the advent of the industrial press has led to cultural particularities both positive and negative, but ultimately a participatory attitude is hard to adopt, by people below and above the line(PDF), when equity is not appreciated or sought.

While there is any inbalance of financial and reputational consequences for what is written, the public conversation cannot be the best, most inclusive, most honest version of itself. But we can attempt to aid it in this direction, starting with:

Payment for both starting and continuing the conversation

Pseudonymity so that one participating individual’s reputational and legal liability does not outweigh the others

A standard for clear and attributable apologies / corrections for inaccuracies and mistakes by those on any side of any lines

During this I proposed that practitioners who deal with collecting, processing, analysing and sharing social media data can operate according to a simple principle, to weight privacy in favour of individuals, and transparency towards institutions. For indeed, such responsible data dealing is essential for attaining and retaining trust in 21st century institutions…

Delving further into what this means in practice I put forward the following framework, which can be used by marketers to clearly document and ask questions of social data usage:

Encouraging ‘constructive’ participation is a goal for most forum owners (but remember, one woman’s troll is another woman’s truth teller). Design and nurture is a critical successful factor for developing a healthy interactive online spaces.

With this notice automatically embedded inline with new forum members posts, money saving expert (MSE) is taking account of how nerve-wracking speaking up for the first time can be, and gently suggesting to other established members to go easy. This has three great functions:

Makes established forum members aware of how their words may have particularly strong effects

Encourages other lurkers to take the leap into posting when they see it

We live in an era of deep technological and economic change that has not been matched by a similar development of public institutions responsible for its regulation… We need to move forward to new, more extensive and deeper forms of democracy…

The existing national-state organisations have to be part of a wider and much better coordinated structure, which involves democratic regional institutions on all the continents, the reform of the International Court of Justice, a fairer and more balanced International Criminal Court and a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly as the embryo of a future World Parliament.

Yet, this institutional change will not be successful if it only accrues from the actions of a self-appointed elite. On the contrary, it must come from a socio-political process open to all human beings, with the goal of creating a participative global democracy.

Durex USA are looking to make further in-roads into the US condom market with their new Facebook app which offers couples the chance to get “in sync,” by finding the perfect love song based on their lovemaking styles. As well as a creative means of gamifying individual characteristics in a way that ties neatly, but just about subtly, to the product, this is a good case study in dealing with user data, and Facebook sharing, clearly and sensitively. The Facebook app like gate / splash page clearly tells potential users “Don’t worry. We won’t share your results unless you tell us to.”